Pain swallows hope whole, quashing anticipation, motivation, and strength as heartbeats tumble through our fingers in a tempest of raging shame. Without hope, we wither, unmoored and disconnected from the Body, depleted. Yet in the beginning was the Word, and the...

Last March I spent my birthday with a group of women at a Retreat center in northern Ohio—a beautiful, former girls school turned nunnery turned sanctuary. There our hearts were primed to hear God’s voice. Each morning I led the women in lectio divina. We walked a...

This is part two in a two-part series entitled: Field Notes of Pain ….. There was this youth group kid that whittled. You know, the art of taking a piece of wood and turning it into a troll or something. He did that. And he was good. I was fascinated – first,...

DEPRESSION ISN’T ALWAYS EASY TO UNDERSTAND, BUT WE CAN OFFER COMPANIONSHIP TO THOSE ADRIFT ON ITS TURBULENT WATERS. Six years ago, my sister, Rachel, drifted out to sea—not a body of water, but the dark depths of depression. Looking back, I shouldn’t have been...

I buried my head into my father’s shoulder, sobbing out my fears and exhaustion after finding out my husband had collapsed and was unresponsive. He has Type 1 Diabetes and had already been hospitalized a week. The days seemed like years and so little progress was made...